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Inside the Cocoon

British rock star Sting didn’t know what he was getting himself into when he cancelled a concert in Astana earlier this month in protest at Kazakhstan's treatment of striking energy-sector workers.

Now, two disgruntled former cops who were fired for breaches of discipline have written to the former Police frontman asking him to intervene in their case, Tengri News reports.

Galiya Mukhambetova and Kumisbek Kanymbayev were fired from the police department in the western city of Aktobe last year, accused of involvement in the disappearance of top-secret case materials. They now face charges, which they deny, over the disappearance of the documents – which later turned up.

In a bid to clear their names and win reinstatement, the ex-officers have turned to Sting to answer their prayers. “I’m sure Sting will investigate our problem, and then the Kazakh authorities will pay attention to us,” Mukhambetova said.

She may be investing too much hope in the powers of the legendary rock star: His concert cancellation has so far done nothing to help the striking energy workers in western Kazakhstan.

Their industrial action over salaries and trade union rights has just entered its third month, and state oil and gas company KazMunayGaz is adamant that it won’t bow to their demands.

The company says the strike is illegal – a position backed by the courts – and has already fired hundreds of workers. Natalya Sokolova, a lawyer advising the strikers, is in detention facing charges of inciting social enmity, which carry a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

[UPDATE -- Good news: Urinboy Usmonov will be released on bail today, Dushanbe's Asia-Plus news agency reported one hour ago. But it sounds like he still faces the charges outlined below.]

A month after his arrest on dubious and politicized charges, BBC reporter Urinboy Usmonov is still languishing in a Tajik prison.

Usmonov, a correspondent for the BBC’s Uzbek-language service, was arrested on June 13 and charged with being a member of the Islamist group Hizb-ut-Tahrir, an accusation frequently leveled against government critics in Tajikistan. Though those charges were later dropped, the authorities seem unwilling to free him: Usmonov is now being held for not informing Tajikistan’s security services about his meetings with Hizb-ut-Tahrir members.

"The Tajik government is now prosecuting Urinboy Usmonov for not being a government informer," the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based watchdog, said in a July 13 statement. "This action essentially criminalizes journalism. We call on the Tajik prosecutor to drop the charges against Usmonov and release him immediately."

The BBC marked the one-month anniversary by reiterating calls for Usmonov’s immediate release and highlighting concerns over his health and fragile mental state.

There have been a few interesting twists and turns lately in the fortunes of some implacable foreign-based foes of Kazakhstan’s President Nursultan Nazarbayev.

London-based oligarch Mukhtar Ablyazov is on the up – he’s currently rejoicing over news that the UK authorities have agreed to grant him political asylum, a development that’s sure to enrage Astana.

“Mr Ablyazov’s application for political asylum was based on the fact that if he were to return to Kazakhstan he would be persecuted because of his political opinions,” RLF Partnership Ltd., which represents Ablyazov’s interests, said in a statement e-mailed on July 12.

Backing his claims, Ablyazov points to a prison sentence he served in Kazakhstan in the early 2000s on corruption charges. He was imprisoned shortly after becoming a founder member of a political reform movement.

BTA is now suing Ablyazov – who denies any wrongdoing – in London’s High Court, alleging that he defrauded the bank of $295 million. But in a setback to his case, earlier this month a witness admitted lying in court, the London Evening Standard reported.

The manhunt for a group suspected of the premeditated killing of two police officers in the western Kazakhstan village of Shubarshi on June 30 has prompted a bloodbath by the standards of normally tranquil Kazakhstan. So far, 13 are dead. But authorities are, once again, mysteriously intent on ruling out any connection with Islamic movements.

After a major security operation – and a $100,000 reward offered for information – the group was tracked down to a house in a nearby village, Kenkiyak, on July 8. Nine suspects and one police officer were killed in an ensuing shootout (another security forces officer died earlier when someone opened fire on him during the manhunt).

The authorities offered a baffling explanation for the incident: The group was engaged in organized crime while sheltering behind the guise of religion.

“For some time on the territory of Aktobe Region’s Temir District an organized criminal group has been operating which, using religious ideas as a cover, was engaged in theft from a pipeline near the villages of Shubarshi and Kenkiyak, and also committed other crimes of a mercenary and violent nature,” Aktobe Region police spokesman Almat Imangaliyev explained.

This is a rather enigmatic explanation. Why would they shelter behind religion, and what does that mean anyway?

It looks like cyclist Alexandre Vinokourov's long career may have come to an abrupt end. Kazakhstan’s star 37-year-old Tour de France competitor crashed out of the race on July 10 in spectacular fashion, while having one last try at cycling's most coveted prize. With him, Kazakhstan’s dreams of a win were firmly dashed, for this year.

Vinokourov spoke of his disappointment in a statement on the Team Astana's website: "I never expected such a dramatic end on the Tour de France. This is a terrible disappointment to me, I am so sad tonight. But I want to reassure me by telling me that it could have been much worse. The injury will stop me for quite a long time, and I will follow the Tour on television to support the entire Astana team. I know my friends of the team won’t forget me and they will do everything to win at least one stage."

The Team Astana leader was at the head of the pack when he was driven into a ravine during a steep mountain descent. He ended up with a fractured right thighbone after he was forced off course by another rider's crash as they were rounding a slippery corner.

Something must be going right in the rickety relationship between Dushanbe and Moscow.

In late March, Moscow increased fuel export duties on petroleum products destined for Tajikistan, the poorest country to emerge from the former Soviet Union. This blog speculated on possible causes: Could it have been pressure to allow Russian troops to reassume control over the Tajiks’ wide-open border with Afghanistan, which Moscow says is a conduit for millions of dollars of heroin blighting Russian youth? Or something thornier, such as whether Moscow should pay to station its troops on Tajik soil?

Certainly, Russian primo Vladimir Putin isn’t the kind of leader who responds to irritations with charity. In May, prices for gasoline in Tajikistan jumped 44 percent thanks to his tariffs. But in a sudden about-face, the all-powerful Putin has signed a decree actually lowering – slightly, immediately, even retroactively – those fuel duties. Light crude prices will decrease by a modest 3.7 percent as of July 1, CA-News reported on July 5.

Putin is no doubt concerned by what the US Embassy, in a WikiLeaked cable, described last year as a “poorly trained, poorly paid, underequipped and often under-fed” Tajik border force that allows 40 tons of opiates to enter Russia each year.

Since April, Internet users everywhere have been gripped by a bandwidth-hogging phenomenon: the bizarre Nyan Cat meme. And why not? Surely everybody (especially pre-teens and weary Central Asia correspondents) loves the idea of a flying digital cat ensconced in a giant pop tart radiating a space rainbow in its wake. All to the accompaniment of a cute ditty on a ten-hour loop, of course. (Warning: You will have to watch to the end for your "view" to be counted; over 740,000 others already have.)

Now, somebody has created an Uzbek variant complete with the cat wearing a puss-sized Uzbek traditional hat and wrapped inside a lepyoshka, the flat bread beloved of Central Asians. Also, the cat is patriotically emitting the colors of the national flag and flying over recognizable historical landmarks of Uzbekistan. The video is mercifully shorter that the original, and irritation levels will depend largely on how much Uzbek pop appeals.

There are already US- and Russian-themed versions out there, so will other Central Asian copycats follow? An Akhal-Teke horse with a watermelon for a body flying on a Turkmen carpet, repeating verses from Turkmenbashi’s Rukhnama for 15 hours, perhaps?

Just what is going on in western Kazakhstan? Two police officers slaughtered in a village on June 30, an elite task unit officer killed trying to hunt down the killers, and the relative of one suspect shot dead while fleeing from the security forces – it sounds more like troubled Afghanistan than usually tranquil Kazakhstan.

Adding to the intrigue, this bout of violence comes in the wake of a May suicide bomb attack in the western oil city of Aktobe that authorities dismissed as the work of the mafia.

This time, police “do not rule out the involvement of religious extremists in the murder of the police officers,” Kazakhstan Today reported as security forces continue to hunt the killers.

The two officers were killed in the village of Shubarshi, 250 kilometers from Aktobe, when attackers set upon their checkpoint, shot them, and fled the scene.

Investigators have named six men as suspects -- four from Shubarshi and two from the nearby villages of Kenkiyak and Sarykol. Five are men in their twenties; one is over 40.

One member of the security forces from the elite Arlan task force has already been killed in the ongoing operation to capture the suspects, Kazakhstan Today reports.

With President Nursultan Nazarbayev ensconced in power for another five years following his April reelection, attention in Kazakhstan is turning to parliamentary politics.

Elections aren’t due until August 2012, but the political scene is already getting a shake-up as Kazakhstan – which has a single-party parliament – contemplates the novel prospect of embracing a multiparty legislature.

What party could be more fit for the role of “parliamentary opposition” than one headed by a man who was a member of the Nur Otan party (led by Nazarbayev, the only party in parliament) until the day before he was elected leader of an “opposition” party?

Step forward Ak Zhol and new leader Azat Peruashev, who quit Nur Otan on July 1 and became Ak Zhol leader the very next day.

Peruashev certainly has good connections: He works with Nazarbayev’s powerful son-in-law Timur Kulibayev at the Atameken Union, a business lobby. Peruashev is chairman; Kulibayev chairs Atameken's presidium.

Pop star Sting has been stung yet again by his musical machinations in the Stans.

After agreeing to wow an audience in the Kazakh capital on July 4 as part of Astana’s annual city day celebrations, which just happen to coincide with the birthday of strongman President Nursultan Nazarbayev on July 6, he abruptly announced the day before the concert that he’s pulling out. It seems Sting has had an attack of conscience over the treatment of protesting oil workers in western Kazakhstan, which he said was brought to his attention by Amnesty International.

“Hunger strikes, imprisoned workers and tens of thousands on strike represents a virtual picket line which I have no intention of crossing,” Sting said in a sanctimonious statement. “The Kazakh gas and oil workers and their families need our support and the spotlight of the international media on their situation in the hope of bringing about positive change.”

About Inside the Cocoon

Central Asia initially became known to the outside world for its strategic place on the Silk Road of antiquity. Today, the region is still a web – sometimes smooth, sometimes roughhewn – of competing histories and raw intrigue. It is often called the New Silk Road, but it is more like a tangled, elaborate knot, awkward to unravel.

Silk, so important to the Central Asia's identity from afar, is only harvested in a few places here nowadays. But the process remains uncomfortably familiar: the delicate cocoon of the silkworm larvae is immersed in boiling water, killing the worm and unleashing its treasure.

Inside the Cocoon will disentangle the opaque world of Central Asia today.

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